Singletary calls second meeting

Coach Mike Singletary called another meeting with his players last night after the team landed from their forgettable trip to Seattle. Singletary was informed by either players or coaches that he was excessively harsh with his post-game comments. Singletary didn’t want to reveal the individuals who were the objects of his scorn. When Smith was asked if he was called out, he said, “He was critical of everyone, but I certainly had a hand in (the loss). I’m the quarterback.”

What Singletary did not want to do was to make sure his post-game words weren’t divisive.

“I wanted to make sure they knew exactly what was said and one of the most important things was to stay together,” Singletary related during his Monday news conference. “Some of my comments after the game were very harsh comments, very honest comments. I wanted to make sure guys weren’t having conversations in the parking lot, having conversations in the bathroom, not fully understanding what I was saying.”

Players were given a hush order about the extra meeting. “I can’t comment on any of that,” tight end Delanie Walker said. “We were told not to talk about any of that.”

What Singletary and quarterback Alex Smith did talk about was how to rectify the continuing problems with play transmission that bedeviled the team in the red zone during Sunday’s 31-6 loss to the Seahawks.

Here are some of the solutions:

+Take offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye out of the booth and put him on the sidelines where he can transmit the play directly in to the Smith’s helmet. Plays must come in from the sidelines and not the booth, so Raye relays the call to quarterbacks coach Mike Johnson who then sends it to Smith. Should Raye take to the sidelines, the middle man is eliminated.

+Put the numbered plays on a wrist band and instead of communicating a long play such as “X call, hustle 2, I right slot, two man counter easy,” three times, Raye simply calls out a number that Smith cross checks on his wrist band with the play that’s being called. So then Smith is the only one communicating the entire play, which saves time and confusion.

+Make a set time when Smith eschews the call coming in and simply calls his own play. “We’ve talked about that,” Smith said. For example, if Smith doesn’t get the play with 24 seconds left on the clock, he then calls the play himself.

+Putting the play-calling, at times, completely into Smith’s hands. That’s not something Smith would like to do all the time. “I have to do a lot already,” he said. “That’s why we have an offensive coordinator.”